As UD anticipated, businessmen (well, one… there will be others) are stepping up to handle the fines burqa-wearing women in France – or their husbands – will soon have to pay.
UD anticipated that the Saudi government would be the first to make such a move, and she continues to hope that it will, because however rich one businessman is, he can never hope to compete with the endless resources of a country.
There is no question in UD‘s mind that, what with the growing popularity of burqas in Europe, and the very great need of countries like France for revenue, this is a fiscal marriage made in heaven. If UD were debating the ban in the National Assembly right now, she would urge lawmakers to designate the money for use in the education of young women.
She would also urge fervent American defenders of the burqa to make a contribution. Talk is easy.
Ain’t gettin’ anything out of her, though.
**************************
Update:
First line of Radio France International’s coverage:
The burqa, the cloth bag which some Muslim men find it reasonable to keep their women inside, is facing a ban here in France.
July 12th, 2010 at 2:43PM
I was a little disappointed in the Nussbaum piece, too. The most serious objection to the burqa is that it is not, in any sense of the word, “chosen.” She deals with this objection in what seems like a very superficial way: oh, well, let’s spend more time educating women about their choices and blah blah blah, as if informing young Muslim women of the Wahabi stripe that they don’t necessarily have to cover their whole bodies in sackcloth is likely to change their circumstances at home. To that objection, she pulls out the “Muslim women are no more likely to be subject to physical coercion than ordinary French women” set of statistics, as if there’s no chance that the coercion is either a) softer than physical violence, premised on a whole system of religious indoctrination undertaken at a very young age; or b) simply being reported less often, again, for cultural reasons.
July 12th, 2010 at 3:07PM
Shannon: Obviously I agree; and I was struck, as were you, by the superficiality…
Although I’d call it condescension. Men who put their women in burqas couldn’t ask for a better friend than Lady Bountifuls like this.
July 12th, 2010 at 3:24PM
If I say it five times, it must be so…
July 12th, 2010 at 10:48PM
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t remember Nussbaum speaking out against the danger to civil liberties represented by radical Islamist **murder threats** against those they consider blasphemers. Like this, for instance.